[Sca-cooks] crepes

Mon Sep 20 10:31:14 PDT 2010

On Sep 20, 2010, at 12:58 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
> I can also see where having an omelet pan with sides that curve into the bottom, rather than meeting at a sharp corner, would make frying a crepe easier than in a skillet.
> 
> Is there a difference between a crepe pan and an omelet pan? And if so, how do they differ?

An omelette pan usually has sloped sides that meet a flat bottom, as opposed to have the curved sides you speak of (although many saute pans do have that feature)...

> Adamantius, were you using a skillet or pan that you could pick up? or were you cooking your crepes on a flat, fixed griddle?  I'm not sure which would be traditional.

Well, not to sound snippy or anything, but it's traditional to cook pancakes in a pan. There are also other ways of doing it, but standards of identity being what they are, it's best to remember what it is we're doing, at least nominally, before changing the plan. I've never worked anywhere where crepes were the primary menu item, and if they were, I can see how a griddle would come in handy. I used two or three saute pans on the range top, poured in a small, more or less measured, amount of batter, and swirled it. Not all were perfectly round, I'm sure, but they did come reasonably close, and when filled eccentricities of edge shape didn't really show anyway.

> I can remember learning to cook pancakes in the Boy Scouts and learning to flip them without using any instrument other than the skillet. A bit of knack to that. Do it wrong and your pancake ends up in the fire. Or sticks. Or ends up in pieces.

My son recently had an experience (yep, he was showing off, apparently) involving a delicious breakfast scraped off the kitchen ceiling... this is probably a great way to learn not to engage in careless or gratuitous flipping...

Adamantius

"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter